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The Kids in the Hall’s Dave Foley Would Rather Go Naked Than Wear Tights Again
Cultishly adored comedy troupe Kids in the Hall are currently on their first national tour in half a decade, and they’re in town this weekend with a string of shows at Nokia Theatre Times Square. To celebrate the occasion, we checked in with reliably hilarious Canadian expat Dave Foley, who spoke to Vulture about what we can expect from the tour, his resemblance to a certain Blue Velvet star, and the indignity of wearing tights.
So what have you all been up to in the last few years? Do you see each together a lot?
We see each other a fair amount, especially now that everyone except Mark is living in L.A. We started getting together in L.A. doing unannounced shows — we’d write for three days and put a show up to see if we still could do it like we did when we were in our twenties. And you know what? I think this is probably the best live show we’ve ever put together. I think it’s the funniest.
Have you ever been to the Nokia Theatre?
I’m not even sure I’m going this time, actually.
It’s actually a pretty good venue because they have a ton of arena seating in the back.
Ah, so you can slip out unnoticed if you get tired. Or if you’re not happy, like, [in old-timey voice], “This comedy’s outrageous!” and then you put on your straw boater and storm out of there.
So what can we expect from the shows?
The unexpected — that’s what you can expect! No, the comedy will be similar to what you’ve seen from us before, but the show is about 90 percent new material. We’ve got some new sketches with old characters, but I won’t be doing Hecubus this time around, I’m very pleased to say.
No Hecubus!? Why not?
I don’t want to wear the damn tights anywhere! I’ve seen video of me as a middle-aged man in tights, and it’s not very pleasant. Playing that character as a skinny boy was one thing; it’s just not as cute as it was.
Is there anything — aside from the tights — that makes you cringe when you watch old episodes of the show?
More than anything what makes me cringe are the sketches that I fought against — the ones I was vehemently opposed to, that I thought were just unfunny and terrible. Now I see them and it’s like, “Hey, you know, that’s actually pretty funny. What the hell was I being such an asshole about?”
A co-worker told me to tell you that you’ve ruined Isabella Rosselini for him because you look just like her when you’re in drag.
Why would that ruin that for him? Shouldn’t that just make looking at me better for him? When I was on Conan, I was sitting right next to her, and the hair and makeup people put me in a wig — I actually think they spent most of the show’s budget to make me look as much like her as possible. They also did it for a little film in which Mark was the guy and I was the woman and we were talking sort of sickeningly in a museum. But then when the camera came down close to our faces there was an audible gasp from the audience because I looked ridiculously beautiful.
Amazing. Anything else you can share to get people jazzed up for the New York shows?
Well, we do the entire show nude.
Um, so performing nude is preferable to wearing tights?
Yeah, actually. It’s more flattering. People get distracted from my belly by my penis. Definitely better. —Sara Cardace
